Sugar is a fantastic adventure game that feels very reminiscent of the older-style adventure games seen many years ago, but with a clean brand of polish and some very fun yet simple gimmicks scattered throughout to make for a super memorable adventure.

The game is split into a multitude of stages, each with a secret key and secret area/warp inside. These secret keys are required to access the 6th stage and what's classed as the "normal" end of the game, and the secret areas/warps are required alongside them to access the true end. Whilst I'd 100% recommend going for the true end, some of the secrets are quite honestly absurdly stupid to the point where it's funny. To name a couple, one stage has an invisible button that you need to shoot to open the warp on the previous screen, and another has a hidden block in a random floor opening you need to activate after finishing a puzzle to open up the warp. They're pretty funny but unless you're a search-a-holic you might want to resort to a guide. Sonoko on YouTube has a very helpful video guide to the secrets which I'd recommend if you decide to do so.

Anyway, the flow of the game follows a very similar format of stage -> boss -> stage -> boss. Each usually plays around a certain gimmick with the exception of the 1st one, and the gimmicks are generally done pretty well. Stage 4 in particular had a very fun gimmick playing off different colour zones locking down your movement ability (or empowering it) which provided some fun gameplay without ever getting too complicated or overwhelming, and stage 5 whilst being a puzzle stage was the most part pretty straightforward and satisfying to plod through.

Some minor gripes platforming-wise would be a couple of saves feel like a sudden spike in difficulty compared to those prior to it, namely one in stage 4 that involved a secret entrance. There's also one puzzle (although it's actually part of a "boss") that has to be done under timed pressure which caused some frustration. I ended up printscreening it and solving it after dying. I also wasn't a fan of the pre-true-final-boss platforming which is 16 pretty easy screens without any saves. It's a neat throwback to Yoyo's past games but it felt unnecessary and should've been way shorter to alleviate any frustration.

Each stage also has a boss, which for the most part are really fun! A lot of attacks are barrage-based and less-so on the learny side of things which definitely catered to my preference. I did notice that the 1st boss felt like the hardest boss for the first 5 stages which seemed rather odd, but it was fun regardless. A special mention though goes to the true end bosses which are absolutely some of the highlights of the game. The visual design is really slick and the attacks felt varied and fair, never reaching the point of frustration.

There's also an avoidance to round off the true end of the game. I was pleasantly surprised to find the avoidance was a treat for the eyes and very visually different what I'd seen in the rest of the game. The attacks felt well choreographed and flowed together rather well, and other than an early attack which took a few tries to get down, nothing felt too challenging. It was a nice send-off for the game and left me with a very good sugary aftertaste for the adventure.

My only complaint with the bosses would be in regards to boss 5, which is essentially a collection of puzzle rooms using the gimmick established in the stage. As mentioned earlier, timed puzzles became frustrating for me and there's a fair amount of rooms you're expected to do under timed pressure which gave me some gripes by the end. It's a small blotch in the grand scheme of things though.

Overall Sugar is just a great game. It never goes into any particular gimmick too intensely but for what it does, it does well. The design felt like it focused on being fun above all else, and it was a very pleasant surprise. I'd very much recommend going for 100% as the end-game content is a treat.

Lazy Needle 2 is a 6-screen interconnected needle game with a focus on looping around screens and taking interesting paths, all whilst flying through some clean and enjoyable Long John needle.

The game uses a variety of standard needle gimmicks, and it's always kept in a good balance so you never feel oversaturated with crazy platform journeys or jungle adventures. With this sort of maze-type kind of needle game there's always the worry of screen transition ganks, but they're kept to a minimum here. There's only really one or two cases where you may be caught off guard and they didn't feel like a big deal, and finding your path forward is generally pretty straightforward enough to not get lost.

Do note there's no music in the game, so be sure to bring your own.

Overall it's a very fun needle game. Not too long but has plenty of interesting manoeuvres and fun design to keep you occupied if you're in the mood for a relatively challenging needle experience.

One For All is a collab between 8 makers, each contributing their own stage or boss to the game. I'll go into detail about each stage, but the tl;dr is that it's a pretty solid game with a couple of real awkward and tedious segments. I found the beginning areas to be very frustrating despite the production value, but once I'd pushed into the later ones I started having a great time.

Stage 1 is by Hanamogeta, and despite my big appreciation for his other games I just didn't have a fun time with this stage. It utilized a screen tilt sort-of gimmick where you have to balance something on the small game window you play on, which just felt very awkward to control and pull off. The miniboss in the area also had a very confusing end in regards to the warp, although if you want a pointer I'd recommend trying to keep it as centred as possible by the time you kill the boss. The production value is pretty impressive though, and it's an interesting concept for a stage, just not one I had fun with unfortunately.

Following this, Tsuta takes the stage with a boss (the game follows the stage -> boss -> stage -> boss format). Like the previous stage, I wasn't a big fan of this. The boss is essentially a Bomberman tribute which is mainly pattern until the end which can turn into some 5000 IQ mindgames with you trying to predict the boss movements. Block-ledge layouts are one of my peeves in fangames when you're forced to do them quickly, and as you might expect from a Bomberman layout, there'll be plenty of those here.

Klein is the 3rd, and this is where I started to enjoy the game a lot more. The stage is based around more standard platforming with some spike traps, moving cherries and even a very enjoyable puzzle screen which had a very interesting conclusion. This felt very much like Klein's other games such as Emperor and Butterfly, although of a much easier difficulty which ended up feeling just right to me.

Following that, Nikunashi Gyudon 800 yen's boss is up next. This was the only maker I wasn't familiar with before playing, although the boss turns out to be pretty fun. It takes some quick thinking to beat and may cause a bit of frustration if the gimmick doesn't appeal quickly, but I ended up having a good time with it. The ending will also test everything you've learnt, so be ready for that.

The third platforming stage is made by Doruppi, and is probably my favourite stage in the game. It's a sideways tower filled with variety, ranging from rolling HD apples, spot-the-difference tests, surprisingly reasonable block puzzles and even some Mary Poppins cosplay. It's just a really fun stage, and definitely one of the highlights for me.

The boss following this is made by Dagger, and is a fairly short and simple boss utilizing walljump and some guy with big wings. Some attacks definitely felt like they provided way more damage openings than others but nothing felt awkward to play around or overly complicated. Overall a fun fight without too much to say about it.

Aqua brings the 4th and final platforming stage to the table, which whilst feeling rather short ends up being fairly fun and unique. Each screen has a different sort of theme, with a bit of needle and puzzles thrown in here and there. There's also quite a spooky trap that might catch you off guard, but you'll find that in your own time.

The game ends with Carnival making the boss, and I was a bit mixed on it. Some attacks are fun to dodge and play around, but it just goes on for far too long. If each phase lasted half the time then I think the problems I had would've been alleviated, and maybe it's possible to get 3 shots in per cycle to try skipping the 2nd cycle of each attack, but it became quite tedious to do the early (and easy) attacks for so long to die to something more challenging later on. Some of the later attacks are a little learny too and caught me off-guard which added to the frustration a bit. It's an okay boss but ultimately I think it would've benefited from having far less HP and less downtime.

So overall, it's a mixed bag but with the good stuff mostly outweighing the bad stuff. If you can get past the early hitches then you're in for a good ride. Better yet, if you can enjoy the early stuff then you're probably set for a great time. Give it a try!

Rating is based on True End, which I finally got around to playing recently after years of nothing but Bad End.

Not Another Needle Game is a great game, worthy of the reputation it has. The level design stays consistently interesting for well over 380(?~) floors (if you're going for True End) which is no small feat, making use of a wide variety of gimmicks and combining them in fun ways to make the game flow always stay steady and enjoyable. The production value is at a very solid level which is supported by the clean visuals, different endings and high level of polish that's gone into making the game feel like a complete game.

Favourite personal stages include the water stages (both Bad and True End) which felt like the water usage was done very satisfyingly, and the Telejump stage which remains one of my favourite gimmicks used in needle for quite some time now. The only gimmick that sometimes got a bit grating was heavy gravity mixed with infinite jump, often when combined with low gravity. The shift between the two made for some very sudden movements that I had a hard time getting accustomed to over the course of the game.

Overall though it's a great game. Just about everyone is familiar with NANG now and has formed their own opinions on it, and I'm glad I finally got around to playing the True End of the game. It's 100% worth it.

Quantum World hits a lot of ticks in things I have fun with in fangames.

The game is built primarily off needle-based gameplay with some avoidances here and there. The stages each have a theme and some simple gimmicks based around them which make for some fun and simple platforming, such as moving cherry circles, collecting coins to open a gate or even some neon speed-changing dotkid needle. The only "gimmick" I didn't enjoy too much was the conveyor stage, and this was less down to the conveyors and moreso the length of the saves, often with trickier segments near the end that made it feel slightly tedious at times.

In terms of bosses, there are a couple and standard bosses alongside 3 avoidances. Whilst I can be a little wary of avoidances in adventure games (especially if there are 3 of them in one game), they're all done really well here. To summarise, the first avoidance is a classical music avoidance with primarily RNG based attacks and a tiny bit of learning here and there. It flows really nicely and felt fun to play, as well as being a breath of fresh air in terms of music choice. The second is a Miku avoidance but with checkpoints and attacks that feel fairly straightforward to learn, with my only complaint being that the third checkpoint feels very easy and short compared to the second. The third and final boss is a super fun barrage fight which gives you a smaller hitbox and HP. No attacks feel unfair or out of place, and it's just overall a really fun avoidance to read and play. All avoidances are designed in a way that doesn't break the flow of the game, which is an issue a lot of adventures with avoidances can suffer from.

Provided you're open to primarily needle and avoidance based gameplay, you'll probably have a good time with this. Give it a shot! It's a fun game for sure.